Let Us Adore Him
by i.paint.the.sky
Summary: Caroline goes looking for Tyler but finds Klaus instead. Set immediately after 4x09.


**Let Us Adore Him**

She smelled the blood almost immediately as she stepped outside, leaving Stefan to his anger and grief. The further she went into the forest, the more the trees and earth and wind around her reeked of violence and death. By the time she found the strewn corpses, she had already put together a good guess as to what had happened.

Klaus.

Caroline moved from body to body, dreading what she would find; but with each one, she felt her spirits begin lift. It seemed impossible but it was true. He wasn't here. Tyler wasn't here. A strange, twisted laugh caught in her throat and soon was echoing all around her. He wasn't here.

Which, of course, meant that she had to find him, _now_. If Klaus knew what the hybrids were doing, that meant he knew about Tyler and would be hunting him down. She would have to get there first and do something, she wasn't sure what. Get out of town, run for their lives and keep running, until ... She remembered what Elena had told her, about Katherine's family. About Rose and Trevor. She didn't want to run for the rest of her life. How could she leave it all behind, everything and everyone.

She forced herself to stop. She couldn't think like that, not until she knew Tyler was okay. Which meant she had to think, to figure out where he would go. The party, maybe? It should be over now but maybe he'd go there? It was a good a shot as any and so off she went, running as fast as her feet could carry her.

She was back in town and close when she smelled blood again. Before she even had a chance to stop and figure out why, something slammed against her, pushing her backwards and smashing her into a wall. Klaus' hand was wrapped around her throat as he kept her pinned, her feet only barely touching the ground.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't rip your heart out with the rest of them," he snarled, the blood smeared on his face making the threat that much more terrifying. "You did this, Caroline, don't try to deny it."

She managed to shake her head the barest of inches. "Please," she begged him, not caring if she sounded pathetic if it meant she could live. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" he repeated as his finger twitched and tightened, fingernails digging into her skin. "I don't think that's good enough, _love_." He lifted her higher, as if it were nothing, making it clear that any attempt to struggle against him was pointless. His grip tightened even more and she knew her own blood was joining the hybrids' on his hands.

_If you don't stop talking, I will ____kill you. _She hadn't believed him then, not really, but this was now and suddenly it struck her that this was it – he was actually going to kill her.

Caroline closed her eyes. It took everything she had but she managed to stop her body from shaking and keep the threatening tears at bay. She was not going to go out crying, even if only one other person ever knew about it.

She waited and waited but the final blow didn't come. Instead, after an eternity, she felt his hand relax and then suddenly she was standing on the ground again, all alone against the wall, surrounded by crumbled and crumbling bricks. She stumbled out onto the street. In the distance, she could just barely see Klaus' back as he faded into the distance.

At first, she turned to walk – no, run – the other way. But something stopped her and she turned back around, peering into the darkness. She could just barely see his silhouette now, a shadow amid shadows. She remembered her conversation with Stefan early that night and all the things they had said, before she shattered his world by telling him about Elena. She remembered the Miss Mystic pageant and the way Klaus had made her laugh. She remembered his drawing and his smile.

She remembered the loneliness she had sometimes seen in the corners of his eyes.

She shook her head at her own foolishness and tried to pretend her arms weren't still trembling. And then she went after him.

"Klaus," she called out as she drew close.

"You really don't want to push me or your luck tonight, Caroline," he replied as he kept walking away, his voice low and unsteady. That second part scared her even more but made her certain she was doing what she had to, even if she couldn't – wouldn't – give a name to the reason why just yet.

"I know," she told him. "But I wanted you to know that I didn't apologize just so you wouldn't kill me. I really am sorry."

That made him stop and he slowly turned to face her and eyeing her careful. As he did that, she took the time to really get a look him and at the blood that covered his face and clothes. He had never looked so dangerous before and, damn it, he'd never been so, well, _hot_. She really hoped that second part was a vampire thing.

"Why should I believe anything you say?" Klaus asked, eyes staring at her, cold and furious.

She met his gaze as evenly as she could manage. "Because why would I be here right now if I wasn't telling the truth."

"Fine," he said, taking a step towards her; Caroline held her ground but only barely. "If you're so _sorry_ and _truthful_ right now, tell me where Tyler is."

"I don't know," she replied, trying to keep her eyes staring straight at his, without glancing down at his lips or his shirt or any other part of him. "I was looking for him when you decided to shove me halfway through a wall."

His eyes narrowed for a moment, then finally he nodded, his movement brusque and almost awkward. "I believe you."

Caroline sighed in relief, louder than she had intended though Klaus would no doubt have heard anything anyway. She'd been worried she'd pushed things too far with the wall comment.

"Next question then," he said after a moment. "Did you and Tyler ever actually break up?"

"No," she admitted, shaking her head. "We wanted to keep you from finding out that Tyler and Hayley were breaking the sire bonds."

He turned away from her and she can see his fists clench. "It always lies with you, isn't it."

"And it isn't with you?"

He whipped back around, grabbing her arms hard enough to make her wince. "You really need to learn when to shut up," he told her and before she could say another word, his lips were on hers, crashing down on them, crushing. And soon she was back pressed up against a wall and her hands were tangled in his shirt, tearing fabric and pulling buttons. She doesn't think to ask him to stop; she doesn't think at all, not until she realizes she is trailing kisses along his jaw and licking the blood of the dead hybrids – of Tyler's dead _pack_ – off his skin. But even that realization is not enough to get her to stop, not when she is only just getting started.

She wasn't sure how long it had been – not as long as it seemed, probably – but suddenly Klaus pulled back, the burn of his hands and mouth on her body disappearing. "No," he murmured, looking up at the sky. "Not like this, not _tonight_."

"What?" she asked, breathless.

He shifted, looking into her eyes for just a moment. "You are even more glorious than I remembered but once again, wrong place and very wrong time." He paused and looked away from her again. "You'll understand far too soon."

Before she had a chance to respond, he was gone, a sudden burst of air against her face the only sign that he'd been there at all. Well, that and the sweat on her body and the taste of blood on her tongue.

"What the hell just happened?" Caroline asked the night. Not surprisingly, she didn't get a single answer. Her eyes grew wide as realization slowly sunk in about every little moment since Klaus first put his hands on her. "What the _hell_?" She went to cover her face with her hands but pulled back when they came away bloody. Some of it was probably hers; the rest of it definitely wasn't.

She shook her head and turned, running all the way home. She would just have to wait for Tyler to contact her – not something she was good at but she couldn't run into him looking like this and having to explain.

Even more important, she couldn't run into him feeling like she did right now.

The minute she got home, she jumped into the shower, watching as the scalding hot water became filled with red and crimson. As she did, a million questions ran through her head and she scrambled around in a desperate search for their answers.

An hour later, when she finally stepped out, she was not even remotely closer to finding them.


End file.
